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MINERAL INVENTORY

Mars’ soil resembles Hawaii’s, rover finds

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoNASA | AP photoThis image released by NASA shows a scoop of Martian soil collected by the NASA’s Curiosity rover. An analysis of the soil reveals it contains similar minerals found on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In the first inventory of minerals on another planet, NASA’s Mars rover
Curiosity found soil that bears a striking resemblance to weathered, volcanic sand in Hawaii,
scientists said yesterday.

The rover uses an X-ray imager to reveal the atomic structures of crystals in the Martian soil,
the first time the technology, known as X-ray diffraction, has been used to analyze soil beyond
Earth.

“This was a 22-year journey and a magical moment for me,” NASA’s David Blake, lead scientist for
the rover’s mineralogical instrument, said during a conference call.

Curiosity found the Martian sand grains have crystals similar to basaltic soils found in
volcanic regions on Earth, such as Hawaii.

Scientists plan to use the information about Mars’ minerals to determine whether the planet most
like Earth in the solar system could have supported and preserved microbial life.

Specifically, scientists want to understand what conditions existed to allow the particular
minerals to form. The first Martian soil scoop is mineralogically similar to basaltic materials and
composed primarily of feldspar, pyroxene and olivine.

About half the soil is noncrystalline materials, such as volcanic glass, that form from the
breakdown of rocks.

Several processes can account for this weathering, including interaction with water or oxygen,
similar to how rust forms on iron-metal surfaces.

Brute force, such as sandstorms or meteorite impacts, also could account for the soil’s
weathered components, said chemist Douglas Ming of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Curiosity rover landed inside a giant impact crater near the Martian equator in August for a
two-year, $2.5 billion mission, NASA’s first astrobiology expedition since the 1970s-era Viking
probes.